Black History Month

Today marks the start of African-American History Month. Quite appropriately, the majority of events and activities celebrate the many contributions of African-Americans to the history of our nation. But just as appropriately, it is also a time to reflect on the history of African-Americans in the story of our nation.

“If you study to remember, you will forget, but if you study to understand, you will remember.”

Few things are more central to understanding the history of African-Americans than understanding the history of slavery and emancipation. And for all of its admitted melodrama and mid-19th century cultural biases, one of the most valuable keys to unlocking that history remains Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In fact, if you go to the website of the National Endowment for the Humanities and look at their lesson on Slavery’s Opponents and Defenders, you will find that it begins:

“When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), he was said to have remarked, “Is this the little woman who made this great war?” Such was the impact Stowe’s novel had in exposing the inhumanity of slavery. Selling 300,000 copies in its first year of publication, the book’s popularity in the North revealed the growing sentiment against forcing people to live as chattel—human property that could be worked and disposed of practically at will.”

Every year, African-American History Month has a theme and this year’s theme is Black women in American Culture and History. Great artists, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Ella Fitzgerald, and great champions of freedom, such as Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman. But as President Obama said in his 2012 National African American History Month Proclamation:

“During National African American History Month, we pay tribute to the contributions of past generations and reaffirm our commitment to keeping the American dream alive for the next generation. In honor of those women and men who paved the way for us, and with great expectations for those to follow, let us continue the righteous cause of making America what it should be — a Nation that is more just and more equal for all its people.”

Though not African-American, one woman who helped pave the way is Harriet Beecher Stowe, with her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Unquestionably controversial, and through the sad depredations of popular culture cruelly distorted, it has been both reviled, and subsequently redeemed, by many of the leading African-American intellectuals and leaders of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

But President Obama is right to also acknowledge “those to follow” who will “continue the righteous cause of making … a Nation that is more just and more equal for all its people.” For the fact is that we are, still, an imperfect nation, struggling towards an ideal. And as long as we seek to “continue the righteous cause” we must “study to understand,” understand and remember, how we got to where we stand today.

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“Jiji’s Imaginative Film

"... [is] a skillful condensation of Aiken’s play, combines dramatic scenes performed by accomplished actors, still images drawn from contemporary paintings, periodicals, and original illustrations from published editions of the novel, and popular songs and hymns of the mid-nineteenth century. The result is a powerful visual and auditory experience which reveals the ongoing appeal of a story that helped cause the United States Civil War."

Susan Belasco
Professor of EnglishUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
Editor, Stowe in Her Own Time
Co-editor, Approaches to Teaching Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“Vera Jiji has resurrected a gem

"of American and African American history in her production of George Aiken's Uncle Tom's Cabin. While the historical impact of the work has remained in our memories, so has the tarnish the play experienced in its decline in popularity and changing representations of Black people.

In a short and powerful production Jiji has returned luster and value to the work in a way that allows contemporary audiences to experience the play's original import. A MUST SEE FOR STUDENTS, SCHOLARS AND SERIOUS LOVERS OF HISTORY."